Thursday 18 August 2016

Work hard, play hard


We will have storms this weekend. An Olympian butterfly farts in the Brazilian Rainforest, and there is a tsunami in Weston Super Mare.

Every morning at about 5.30 am - Winter and Summer - I hear the sound of a very expensive supercar traversing the bends on the road beneath our compact but adorable city apartment.

For the last couple of years now, I lie there in bed thinking the same thoughts as it growls off into the distance and out of earshot.

Did the driver of this car become able to afford it by getting to work at six every day? Is it really true that the early bird catches the worm? Would I be making the same noise and waking others if I had worked as hard as this driver all my life?

Well I know the answer to the last question anyway. If I could afford a car like that and still be able to pay the bills, then I wouldn't go to work at 5.30 every day.  Chickens and eggs. In any case, I know ambitious young masons who start work at 6.30 every day and still earn peanuts. They will continue to earn peanuts until they die, retire, or both.

I have a friend who has always owned a supercar - Maserati, Bentley, Ferrari, etc. - since he was about 25 years old. He is not particularly wealthy, but earned enough money to fulfill his passion when young, buying his first car, then trading it in for a slightly better one a year later. He reckons he loses about £2000 per year on each transaction, which is the equivalent or less than someone who buys a boring car from new, on credit. They still have to go to work early, but not in as much style as my friend.

His cars are all about 400 horse power and he would not want - or be able - to put 200 lbs of marble in the back of them, and mine are about 180 horse power and I do. Is this a compromise, or is it the best of both worlds?

Yesterday, I bought a telescopic, lightweight, poacher's-style fishing rod for £5, brand new from a charity shop.

A few years ago, I decided to get involved with fly-fishing - a sport which attracts the same sort of obsessive behaviour as, say, golf - with countless books written about it, ton upon ton of associated accessories to buy for it, hour upon hour of casting practice on dry land which has to be carried out - but I managed to curb this potentially ruining pass-time as I did when noticing that I was developing an unhealthy interest in expensive watches.

I bought two fly-rods, three reels quite a few tied flies, leaders, lines of varying weights, a licence and permit - and I went fishing only once.

A Hardy fly rod can cost you £12000, but a £20 is just as good for catching fish, if that is what you really want to do. Ok, your cheap rod may not cast as far, but if you fish for Brown Trout in our local By-Brook, it is simply a case of dropping the fly on the water from a distance which is slightly shorter than your 10 foot rod, and any attempt at casting would have to be made from the middle of the field, and would almost certainly end up in the trees.

So I will chuck this rod in the back of the car for when I suddenly feel like going fishing, and it will probably get forgotten about until next year.

My £70 military watch tells the time just as accurately as a £20,000 Rolex, and I do not get up at 5 in the morning, but if I had attended Sandhurst as a young officer, I would have been retired for over 10 years by now on a military pension - and I would not have paid for the watch.

23 comments:

  1. Early rising Milkmen (if such men still exist) do not appear wealthy, but maybe their rewards are more 'rewarding'.

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    1. You stray into the realms of 'Carry On' and soft porn.

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  2. When these sort of regrets flit by I spend little time considering them these days. Actually, they don't flit by, they linger, wings beating, making them easy to capture and stuff in a box. I think I've always done this.

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    1. Me too. My box is stuffed, and occasionally things escape in the middle of the night.

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  3. I do think that, generally speaking, one needs to work hard to be successful ..... not many get something for nothing { although, there are always the lucky few of course ! }
    ....... and, I'm not really impressed with £20,000 Rolex watches or mega bucks handbags .... I'd much rather have something that I've found in a vintage shop that is individual but then, that's my style.
    It's a good job that there are successful, rich people around to buy the products to keep people in the jobs that make them { not a very well constructed sentence but you know what I mean !! } XXXX

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    1. Do not assume that I - and others - have not worked very hard in our lives. Most self-made men or women never admit to their inheritances.

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  4. I've just a comment at Cro's place relaying my relief at not having to own or drive a car here in the city. (I was going to leave that comment on your earlier post, but forgot to do so.)

    My years of working at the Metropolitan Museum helped me to increase my appreciation for beautiful objects without developing any real desire to acquire them myself. I'm in agreement with Jacqueline's last paragraph.

    And before I forget, I agree that the Coldplay tune is a good one.

    Best wishes.

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    1. I am asking with this post if I am not acquistive enough. I show signs of it, but I am not - obviously - in tune with the market.

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    2. Tom, you are probably ahead of the market trend. it will catch up with you eventually. Of course, you know that quote about, "In the long run, we'll all ...."

      Some folks nurture their acquisitiveness ruthlessly. Please don't go that route.

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  5. Still luv my R. O.P. Datejust (steel & gold), on my wrist 24/7/52 in wet or dry. Had a friend whose gold similar got ripped off her wrist in broard daylight in a goodish part of London.
    Our refuse collectors come at crack of dawn which in the summer is cool, but they still do it in the winter in pitch dark.

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    1. It has been a long time since I have been ready to go at Dawn's crack, but I don't blame myself for this..

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  6. Sometimes - like today Tom - you speak a lot of sense! (apart from that fishing rod which sounds as though it will languish in the boot for years to come).

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    1. Aha ! That's just where you are wrong Weave............... Ha ha! (yes, I am going nuts).

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  7. I often have a hard time controlling my envy of those with inherited privilege and wealth, especially when those who have benefited from it do not acknowledge their good fortune.

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    1. I don't envy the extreme wealth of my clients - and I mean extreme. Too much responsibility...

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    2. I'm with you there. What gets me is the bloggers who talk about their multiple houses, etc. with no sense of irony.

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  8. It is less likely that you will be mugged for your £70 watch than if you had £20,000 on your wrist. There was an article in the media a few weeks ago about Princess Eugenie and it careful explained all the coffee shops she used and where she worked etc. Also detailing her very expensive watch and jewellery. Watch out Eug. I thought!!

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    1. And if she was mugged, then that's a great story for the journalist who provided the mugger with her whereabouts.

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  9. Excellent post, Tom. Sometimes you really hit it out of the park! I look at my fishing rods, at the canal out the back and then I sigh and think of all the other things I love and try not to buy: Vintage steam trains, plots of land, unsigned oil paintings and of course - watches.
    Loving, not having, is really the key. There is always the museums.

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    1. Sometimes, I am very attempted to smash and grab at museums, but it is getting increasingly difficult to get away with it.

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    2. I will join your team of not doing a smash and grab at museums. However, I always play the game of "what will/would I take" at museums....

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    3. There is a fabulous Georgian glass exhibition just over the road, donated by the widow of an obsessive collector. I play that game about once a month. Yes... that is the one I would have above all others... or maybe that one...

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